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Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

The discussion of high schools which regularly generate "state championship contenders" has taken root in the "State Fair" thread, but it's an interesting topic that could be discussed in a thread of it's own. Ankeny, Valley, Bettendorf, Davenport Assumption, etc. are all being bandied about.

Do parochial schools have an unfair advantage?

Is open enrollment allowing the "name" athletic schools to stockpile HS athletes?

I live in Iowa City, where City High and West High are generally pretty good at everything in Class 4A, while Regina has become a 1A power. Over the past two years, there have been multiple high profile intra-district transfers that are "sports-related". A state champion female golfer left City for West, as did several wrestlers. More recently, two multi-sport brothers (sons of a former Hawkeye linebacker) left West for City, where they'll play baseball, football and basketball. Should this be allowed?

On the small school side, Regina (parochial) has students from the surrounding small towns, ostensibly hurting the programs of Lone Tree, West Branch, etc. Of course West Branch won a state title in baseball several years ago on the strength of two or three open-enrollment transfers from City High!

Open enrollment - good thing or bad thing?

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. - Mark Twain

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Originally Posted by iccyfan

The discussion of high schools which regularly generate "state championship contenders" has taken root in the "State Fair" thread, but it's an interesting topic that could be discussed in a thread of it's own. Ankeny, Valley, Bettendorf, Davenport Assumption, etc. are all being bandied about.

Do parochial schools have an unfair advantage?

Is open enrollment allowing the "name" athletic schools to stockpile HS athletes?

I live in Iowa City, where City High and West High are generally pretty good at everything in Class 4A, while Regina has become a 1A power. Over the past two years, there have been multiple high profile intra-district transfers that are "sports-related". A state champion female golfer left City for West, as did several wrestlers. More recently, two multi-sport brothers (sons of a former Hawkeye linebacker) left West for City, where they'll play baseball, football and basketball. Should this be allowed?

On the small school side, Regina (parochial) has students from the surrounding small towns, ostensibly hurting the programs of Lone Tree, West Branch, etc. Of course West Branch won a state title in baseball several years ago on the strength of two or three open-enrollment transfers from City High!

Open enrollment - good thing or bad thing?

Perhaps the primary question should concern what effect open enrollment has on the ability of the school to educate its students.

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

The original rule that the state had was if a student wanted to tranfer from his school district to a another school district the parents of the student would have to pay the school district they were leaving tuition (the amount of money the school district would get from the state per student). As more school districts with declining enrollment looked to consolidate, or close the school entirely, state legislators took the easy way out, allowing open enrollment instead of redesigning school districts. The state's educational department assumed students would tranfer from the smaller school districts to larger school districts thus hoping to close the small schools and save the state money. The opposite happened as parents sent their kids to the suburbs which had smaller classes allowing more student-teacher interaction and less discipline problems than large schools. If the state would have left the original rule alone there would not be near the amount of open enrollment activity due to the financial cost to the family.

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

I went to Bettendorf. I only remember one athlete coming to our school that didn't live in Bettendorf. He was a soccer player, and played for BSA his whole childhood and wanted to continue to play with his childhood friends.

Assumption on the other hand, is a private school. I always heard the school was giving "scholarships" to athletes for them to come to their school. I have no evidence of this though.

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Assumption on the other hand, is a private school. I always heard the school was giving "scholarships" to athletes for them to come to their school. I have no evidence of this though.

The thing that kills me about this "scholarship" idea (I went to a parochial school and know nothing of it) even if it were true, you went to Bettendorf for how much?

How would it be an "advantage", or recruitment tool, when you get pretty much the same treatment at public schools? And even if it were to happen - it might elsewhere, I don't know. Who's got the right to complain? I'd say the other kids/families forking out thosands of dollars - not the public school kids/families.

You see things like the the star running back driving an H3 to class, now you got a complaint.

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Originally Posted by DaddyMac

You see things like the the star running back driving an H3 to class, now you got a complaint.

I work at Dowling and Everyone drives an H3 so that's not out of the question.
This comes up all the time.
There is a 90 day Sit-out rule for kids who transfer without moving into a school district. Personally I don't have a problem with it. Nothing wrong with creating competition between schools. It should be that way. If schools were treated more like a business, and kids could go (work) wherever they would get the best education and opportunities, I think it would elevate all schools.

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

I coach at a public school, so we'll get my bias out of the way early. Here is where I think the advantage comes into play. For Dowling, and other schools who already play in the highest classifications, 4A in Iowa, the advantage is limited because the other schools are generally in much larger cities. The advantage comes to smaller private schools like Xavier, Assumption, Wahlert, Heelan, etc because they are in some of the larger cities in the state, competing against much smaller towns. The 90 day sit out rule doesn't apply if a student transfers to a private school, they only have to sit out if they transfer back to the public school, even if it is in the district where their parents live. A player I coached as a high school freshman wound up at Dowling, his choice, but certainly hurt our smaller town a bit.

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Ok I make no claims about recruiting, but DaddyMac, as far as Xavier and Assumption goes, so if they have so much of a smaller enrollment, how do these schools generally compete and most of the time pound the crap out of larger public schools in their conferences, explain that one to me?

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

I don't think you will ever have the coaches, school officials directly recruiting but I guarantee there is pressure from parents and teammates on AAU, select, all star type teams to 'keep the team together' at a private school... I remember going to watch A-Rod play in high school... He played at a 1A school in Florida with an enrollment of around 100... They had 50 on the baseball team and never lost a game...

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Private schools that offer scholarships for students that can't come up with the money to pay for the private schooling is fine. There is a line that can be crossed when a student who happens to be 6'10 with a vertical of 36" is given a scholarship to a private school based on "need".

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Well, to start, I don't know anything about Assumption or Xavier. But I did go to DWHS. Enrollment of about 700 currently. We have/had good basketball, good individual sports (tennis, golf) FB pops on the radar screen every few years, and dominant volleyball. In the case of volleyball - we've had a top flight coach who had his choice of college jobs.

From what I see, Wahert usually gets punked pretty good in conference most of the time in the bigger sports.

But I think my arguement is going slightly misunderstood. I've had to endure these accusations and inuendo of impropriety and "recruiting", some levied against my own family. My point is even if it were true (and my family has the check stubs to show it isn't in our case, maybe elsewhere sure - can't say) but if it were - SO WHAT?

We've established that open enrollment is a option for EVERY school in the state. Ask Valley where healthy number of their kids come from, including one of their wrestling champs from last season? I'd wager that Ankeny is drawing a couple kids from outside the city limits.

It's like there's some dirty little secret running about that parochials somehow "recruit". Somehow this gives them an "advantage" over public school (exhibit A on open enrollment)

I'll give you one insight into talent pools. Where do parochial high schools draw their students from in probably 99.9&#37; of the cases. Parochial elementaries. Who do you think coach those parochial elementaries? Basically, we have an excellent farm system

I know in Wahlert's case, those kids and my sister were playing Wahlert volleyball since they were in 5th grade.

Then again, two of my three jr high football coaches came from the public h.s., maybe that's why I turned out so awful. BTW, how many public schools offer full contact jr high football?

Re: Parochial Schools - Open Enrollment - Unfair Sports Advantages?

Originally Posted by soccercy

I coach at a public school, so we'll get my bias out of the way early. Here is where I think the advantage comes into play. For Dowling, and other schools who already play in the highest classifications, 4A in Iowa, the advantage is limited because the other schools are generally in much larger cities. The advantage comes to smaller private schools like Xavier, Assumption, Wahlert, Heelan, etc because they are in some of the larger cities in the state, competing against much smaller towns. The 90 day sit out rule doesn't apply if a student transfers to a private school, they only have to sit out if they transfer back to the public school, even if it is in the district where their parents live. A player I coached as a high school freshman wound up at Dowling, his choice, but certainly hurt our smaller town a bit.

That 90 day sit-out rule very much applies to transferring to a private school. It may not have used to, but unless someone physically moves into the West Des Moines school district, they have to sit out from Varsity competition for 90 days.
Xavier plays 4A football, but is 3A in a lot of other sports.
Assumption is 4A in football as well, but is 2A in pretty much all the rest of their sports.
Heelan has moved everything down to 3A.
Now for Garrigan, St. Edmonds, St Albert, Iowa Mennonite, and Regina. I can definitely see an athletic advantage.

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